Definitley 5 star
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I was amazed when i read this book. This is such a deep book because there are so many possible interpretations of it. You can approach this book from a historical point of view, as it does give a very good recreation of what 19th century Spain and California were like, and very accurate too. The other way in which you can read this book is purely as an adventure novel. There are so many twists and turns that the novel will always have you on the edge of your seat.
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The Curse of Capistrano returns!
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From time to time legends and icons are reborn. This has happened more than once with the Superman and Batman characters. Writers use the known myth but add fresh depth and meaning. The television series Smallville is an excellent example which has created something original out of something old. Seven years ago Spielberg did the same with the very successful movie The Mask of Zorro, though in fact it was about a new incarnation rather than a retelling of the old. Acclaimed novelist Isabel Allende has decided to breathe new life into the same character in Zorro, the novel.
Zorro first appeared in the story "The Curse of Capistrano" by Johnston McCulley which featured in All-Story Weekly in 1919, seven years after that magazine introduced Tarzan of the Apes to the world. A silent movie was released the following year, entitled The Mark of Zorro, featuring Douglas Fairbanks, and then the story was released in book form, using the film title. McCulley went on to write over sixty more Zorro adventures. The character was loosely based on the Californian outlaw Joaquin Murieta - and the 1998 Catherine Zeta Jones film gave a nod to that fact with Banderas being one of the Murieta brothers... There are similarities between Don Diego Vega and Sir Percy Blakeney, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Both characters are independently wealthy, pretend to be useless dilettantes and fight injustice, Zorro wearing a mask, Blakeney employing clever disguise. Indeed, both are precursors of the modern super heroes. This seems appropriate when you consider that Bob Kane was influenced by Zorro when he created Batman in 1937. Bruce Wayne's parents were killed just after the family had watched the film The Mask of Zorro. Wayne is independently wealthy and pretends to be a playboy while donning a mask and secretly fighting injustice. You may also recall the Walt Disney Zorro, featuring Guy Williams, the son of Sicilian immigrants. He appeared in two films and the television series and was an accomplished swordsman, doing his own stunts.
So Chilean writer Allende has quite a legacy to uphold. In fact when the licence-holders approached her she was doubtful about working for hire. However, she has a Latin sensibility, a track record of historical research and could think in Spanish to get under the skin of the characters. Indeed, she fell in love all over again with the character from her youth and was so fired-up by the story she finished the book in three months. It's a translation from the Spanish and is so well done you wouldn't know it.
This book is not the novelization of the Banderas movie The Legend of Zorro. It's a retelling of the original story, a new beginning.
Allende relates the back-story of young Diego de la Vega and how he became the legendary Zorro and she has clearly enjoyed writing this marvellous adventure story, infusing it with classical romance, swashbuckling swordplay, ocean voyages, pirate attacks, native Indian lore and rites, detailed fencing episodes, social injustice, a secret underground society, evil and scheming villains, secret passages and caves, duels at dawn, damsels in distress, unrequited love, gypsy camps and vivid characters.
Don Diego de la Vega was born in Alta California at the end of the 18th century to a Spanish aristocrat and the daughter of a native Indian medicine woman. Diego is raised alongside Bernardo, the son of his Indian wet nurse, and the two milk brothers remain inseparable throughout their lives. Although born into privilege, Diego becomes aware of social injustice at a very early age because of his mixed blood and his bonds of friendship and brotherhood with Bernardo. This is just one of several fascinating aspects of the novel, how Diego unknowingly yet gradually is preparing himself to become a legend fighting for justice: whether that is observing injustice, learning fencing, acrobatics, sleight-of-hand, unarmed combat and acting an effete dandy.
The two boys receive a unique education. The Indian grandmother teaches them how to hunt and fight like warriors, instructing them in native lore. When they are sent on individual quests for a vision and their totems during their rites of manhood, a fox saves Diego's life. This small animal, el zorro - (the fox in Spanish), becomes Diego's emblematic animal. `Zorro is your spiritual guide,' his grandmother tells him. `You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence."
Don Alejandro de la Vega gives his son lessons appropriate to a young Spanish grandee, including fencing, and instructs him on how to run their enormous ranch. Whatever Diego is taught, he passes on to Bernardo. The novel ranges from the early days in California to Spain during the Napoleonic Wars then to New Orleans and back to California. We share in the adventures of the two boys as they move from adolescence into manhood.
When Diego is sent to Barcelona to receive a noble's education, like that of his Spanish ancestors, Bernardo accompanies him as a servant, even though he is no such thing. They stay with a close friend of de la Vega's, a Francophile, Tomas de Romeu, who has two daughters, the beautiful Juliana, and the spunky, younger, cross-eyed Isabel. At the time all of Spain is under Napoleon's control and Spanish guerrillas attack the French forces everywhere. Diego studies at the School of Humanities and is mentored by the famous fencing master, Maestro Manuel Escalante, the author of the definitive manual on the art of swordplay. Escalante recruits Diego into the secret society, La Justicia, whose members pledge, `To seek justice, nourish the hungry, clothe the naked, protect widows and orphans, give shelter to the stranger and never spill innocent blood.' So we finally learn that it is in Barcelona that the revolutionary character of Zorro is born.
After many vicissitudes, Diego returns to Alta California where his old world seems to be in ruins. Here, alongside Bernardo, he finds the true purpose of his life, to restore what has been destroyed and to confront old and new enemies wherever they oppress the weak and poor.
Allende's descriptive passages bring to life the local colour, sounds and smells of Indian villages, the hacienda, the Californian countryside, seething Barcelona, gypsy camps, the sea, and a pirates' island. It isn't a sanitised Disney story - the meanness and squalor are shown as well as the grand mansions and ball-rooms. And throughout the book her characters overflow with the zest for life in all its guises. And there are many instances of wicked and light humour, sometimes even at the expense of the very human Diego.
`There is no one like Zorro,' the narrator states at the beginning, and Allende proves that with this excellent escapist adventure story for old and young alike. Although Zorro is bound to feature in more new books, it's unlikely that Allende will be writing another, which is a shame, because she has done a marvellous job. The clue is in her narrator writing, `I have had my fill of Zorro.'
A pity they couldn't spell Caribbean properly in the map at the front of my copy.
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My favorite book ever
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Ignore every other view before this one- so what it's not exactly high literature with a capital 'L' but so what- are we all snobs?
This novel relies very much on the way you read it. I suggest reading it from a post-colonial stance and you'll soon realise how intelligent, witty and fascinating this novel is. It's full of adventure; race, class and gender issues and reading the struggles that the characters have to find their identities in this culture is almost heart-breaking. Yes it maybe easy reading but don't just read on the surface, there are so many deeper issues to delve into. I great book if you love magic realism.
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zoro to the rescue
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Lots of swashes to be buckled this book is an enjoyable romp through 19th century Spain and California. Great fun and a good holiday read.
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Fun, if not a masterpiece
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Having loved House of the Spirits, and been disappointed by City of the Beasts, Zorro comes somewhere in between. Firstly, this is no literary masterpiece - it is a picaresque 'voyage and return' romp that shows how Zorro came into existence, enjoyable without being particularly challenging.
Allende has clearly done her research, and is like a kid in a sweetshop when presented with all the opportunities of the period. As she says in the 'PS' section at the back: "It was the time of the Napoleonic wars, the wars of independence in America, the pirates of the Caribbean, the secret societies, the new discoveries in science and the exploration of the world." Perhaps she tries to cram in too many of these in crafting her tale, while being too 'knowing' as a narrator to fully dive in (there are postmodern asides to the reader about the epic narrative). The fights are not particularly excitingly described, and over with quickly, while in getting through so many events no time is left to build a lasting tension.
What is refreshing is the female perspective she brings to the story, which features some strong female characters and a feminine view of Zorro's egotism without losing the appeal of the hero.
In short, worth reading for light relief and an interesting peek into the world in the early 19th century, but don't expect literature or high tension.
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